Scribblenauts Remix is one of the most endlessly entertaining apps I've ever encountered on the App Store. Even after finishing the game, I still consistently pull it out to see what it can do. While the game itself is very short, its central idea isn’t likely to get old anytime soon.

What's that? You don't know what to do with all of those gigabytes that Apple gives you? Sure, it's only 5GB of free space (Although who are we kidding? We go nuts over 2GB!). But the iCloud back up service makes it so that you don’t have to connect your device to iTunes in order to keep things synced. We’ll show you how easy it can be to live cord-free with iOS 5.

There’s a lot to love about the way iOS works, but sometimes you just need a little bit more from it. Take the built-in keyboard, for example. It gets the job done for texting and typing in shorter bursts, but for those aspiring novelists, businessmen with a presentation to finish, or extremely dedicated Internet forum trolls, the default keyboard may not cut it. Thankfully, there are a handful of options in the App Store that provide a functional alternative. From the keyboards for the socially addicted to the professional typist on the go, here are eight of the most helpful alternative keyboard options.

With music videos migrating from cable TV to the greener pastures of YouTube -- where stardom is made for folks like Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black -- there's a temptation for folks to craft their own musical creations. Rock Band creator Harmonix's new iOS title VidRhythm streamlines this process, though its options are so limited that it's more a meme creator than an editorial tool.

The holiday season is coming upon us soon and with it invitations to parties. "What should I bring?" you ask your hosts. "Just a couple bottles of wine," they say. You walk into the wine store and -- whoa -- hundreds and hundreds of bottles. Sure, you can buy based on price, you can read the description on the bottle (if there is one), and you can judge by the label. But how do you know you're getting a good wine and not just some overpriced grape juice?

When Smurfs’ Village hit the App Store in November 2010, it initially seemed like a fairly innocuous take on the FarmVille formula -- but almost immediately, it shot to the top of the Top Grossing charts and continues to linger in the higher spots to this day. Certainly, the enduring popularity of those cartoon creatures and their colorful adventures explained, in part, the phenomenon. However, it quickly became clear that not only was the scale of the game’s in-app purchases unlike anything we’d seen before, but that parents weren’t always aware of their kids’ buying habits. And worse yet, the kids might not have known what they were doing.

As the latest Unreal Engine-powered iOS game, the hype behind Dark Meadow is expected. It’s less like Dragon’s Lair than Infinity Blade, and the artistry of its dilapidated setting is as sumptuously apparent as it is evocative. But at some point during the game’s creation, fully-fledged gameplay seems to have bottomed out – and what’s left is an astray, clumsy experience misguided by the intentions of a graphic adventure, which can’t quite shake the feeling of a glorified whack-a-mole sim.

A third-person shooter reminiscent of console smash Gears of War, Shadowgun places players in the role of John Slade, a bounty hunter tasked with tracking down evil genius (and all around bad dude) Dr. Edgar Simon. While we can’t give Shadowgun’s plot any points for originality, the title’s gameplay and gorgeous Unity 3-powered graphics more than make up for the story’s derivative nature.

So Apple fans, did any of you experience the Siri outage? We're told it was a huge deal, but then we also heard from many that they had no troubles. So was it a big news story or wasn't it? Apple commented on it, reminding us that Siri is in beta testing right now, so glitches are to be expected. What else was shaking in this week's hot Apple news?